I just finished reading “The Shack.” I mentioned that I was reading it on my Facebook page and received a variety of feedback, from believers and non-believers, those who hated it and those who loved it.

I liked it. A lot.

I will be spending a few more posts on this topic in the coming days or weeks. But what I came away with was feeling like I’d been grabbed gently by the collar and told, “Hey, look inside. Judgement & forgiveness — those are HUGELY important for you to understand. The role they play in one’s ability to live well — to move past pain, uncertainty, hurt, and disappointment — are very, very important.”

I know this to be true in my own life. And yet I still find myself stuck in places of judgement and unforgiveness. Especially when I have been hurt or perceive that others have made false judgments against me.

In The Shack when God is talking to the main character, Mack, about forgiveness He tells him that forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting. It doesn’t mean accepting what the other has done. It means “letting go of the grip you have on their neck.” What a powerful visual that is.

Imagine if you had your hands literally around the neck of someone who’d hurt you.

Would you squeeze? COULD you squeeze?

What if every time we harbored bitterness and unforgiveness we had that image in our heads. Would we feel compelled to squeeze until the power of our unforgiveness choked the life out of the other person?

Would we realize that our harboring bitterness and unforgiveness only gives the other person power over us because in truth our unwillingness to forgive cuts off our own joy?

You see, the image of hands on the neck really isn’t our hands on the neck of the person we despise. It’s our own hands on our own neck. When we hold onto bitterness and unforgiveness we’re choking the life out of ourselves. We’re giving the person with whom we’re angry, the person we won’t forgive, power over us.

Our unforgiveness and bitterness steals our own joy. It colors our world gray. It mutes the music of laughter. It diminishes the radiance of love.

Unforgiveness is poison.

Forgiveness is freedom.

And it’s not easy. In The Shack God tells Mack that He understands that forgiving someone who has hurt you is hard. God tells him he might have to utter the words “I forgive you” a hundred times a day the first day and the second day, but maybe by the third day it will be fewer times. And he tells Mack that when forgiveness takes hold ”real hold in his heart” he might even want to have a relationship with the person he cannot now fathom forgiving.

That’s powerful stuff.

And I know it’s true, because I’ve lived it.

But I’m human, so I’ve also forgotten it. Too many times.

So this week I’m reflecting on forgiveness and the power it can have in my life.

If I let it.